Karl Dorrell took over as the head coach of the Colorado Buffaloes on Feb. 23, 2020, but his run there has been anything but smooth. That team went 4-2 in the pandemic-shortened season in 2020, then 4-8 last season, and they were 0-5 so far this season after a 43-20 road loss to the Arizona Wildcats Saturday. That led to the school finally deciding to move on from Dorrell (and also DC Chris Wilson), long after many had called for that change:
This led to a lot of reactions from the college football universe:
https://twitter.com/lukezim/status/1576663311739162624
"Dorrell will be paid in installments and the total buyout would be mitigated by the salary of his next position."
**I'm sure Dorrell will be on LinkedIn this week trying very hard to get his next gig lined up to offset the millions he would get paid to vacation.** https://t.co/1TJS10tHuj
— Kyle Bonagura (@BonaguraESPN) October 2, 2022
It’s worth noting that even before the firing of Dorrell (he’s seen above in September in a loss to UCLA), there was criticism of athletic director Rick George for hiring him in the first place, and of the school for not finding the money to fire him before now.
Colorado is comically bad. Karl Dorrell looks like he is on tranquilizers. Arizona declines all CU offensive penalties. @RickGeorgeCU needs to go. He cant be allowed another hire. #skobuffs #cubuffs
— BuffJason
(@JasonEMaggard) October 2, 2022
I don't feel like there are many universal opinions in college football but 'Hiring Karl Dorrell is a terrible idea' is one of them. Never made sense, despite the brief 2020 resurgence.
— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) October 2, 2022
And there’s some merit to those criticisms. Before taking over at Colorado in 2020, Dorrell’s only previous head coaching work came with the UCLA Bruins from 2003-2007, and he went just 35-27 overall in that span. He had a lot of background as a NFL assistant coach, especially with receivers (with the New York Jets from 2015-18 and with the Miami Dolphins in 2019), but that doesn’t necessarily translate into what’s necessary to succeed as a college head coach.
And there was also lots of discussion that Colorado was only waiting to fire Dorrell because of his buyout. So this feels like a move that was coming for some time. We’ll see where the Buffaloes go from here.
[Photo from Ron Chenoy/USA Today Sports]